Freddie Gibbs Talks To Joe Rogan About N-Word Compilation, Says “Fuck Neil Young”
Last month, Neil Young and a bunch of other musicians pulled their music from Spotify in protest of the streaming service’s promotion of Rogan’s vaccine misinformation. Attention was also drawn to a compilation highlighting Rogan’s use of racial slurs throughout the history of his show. Rogan apologized for that while removing over a hundred of his episodes and Spotify condemned Rogan’s racist comments while saying that “canceling voices is a slippery slope.”
This past week on The Joe Rogan Experience, rapper Freddie Gibbs was a featured guest and he addressed the controversy. “You can’t say that shit, Joe, because you pissed n****s off when you did that compilation. It was funny as fuck though, I can’t even lie,” Gibbs said. Rogan interjected to clarify that he didn’t “do” the compilation.
“But hey, man, look, I don’t think you’re a racist, my n***a,” Gibbs continued. “You my n***a! I fuck with you. I never thought you was a racist. I just think you were saying some shit you shouldn’t have said and a lot of us n****s say stuff that we shouldn’t say sometimes. It is what it.”
“That’s the only word you can’t say no matter what,” Rogan responded.
“I want to tell white people right now: Y’all just gotta let us have that,” Gibbs said. “Just let us have ‘n***a.’ Y’all already human trafficked us over here, let us have it, let us have that.”
Rogan and Gibbs, along with fellow guest Brian Moses, then went on to discuss the usage and history of the slur. After Moses joked that Spotify wasn’t going to air this episode, Gibbs said: “Hey, fuck Neil Young, man. Let me say something about Neil Young … Hey, Neil Young, man, I know you wanted to get Joe off this motherfucker, right, but look though, my n***a, you pulled your shit off, but would you have pulled it off if it was only the n***a shit? If you thought Joe was a racist? Would you have stood up for n****s? I think not.”
“In his defense, that was before… He did his thing before…” Rogan responded.
“Well, he should have doubled back for n****s. Fuck that. The only thing I was mad at you for, Joe, man, you fucked up with India.Arie, man. You had a lot of bitches that couldn’t put their shea butter on when she pulled that motherfucking shit off Spotify. You fucked up shea butter for n****s with India.Arie. Shout out to India.Arie, please put your music back up, we love you, baby girl.”
India.Arie was among the artists who pulled her music from Spotify. She cited her problems with Rogan over COVID, his language around race, and Spotify “paying musicians a fraction of a penny.”
Here’s a clip from Gibbs’ episode on the Rogan show: